Your core team might be small.
The project sits in the hands of 10–15 people across the business:
Senior Design Leaders
Insights
Developers
Legal Teams
Sports
Marketing
Supply Chain Partners in China and Vietnam
And none of them report to you.
So what happens when you need them to move?
You cant tell them what to do.You have to build enough understanding and trust for people to want to move with you.
I learned this firsthand leading innovation projects at PUMA.
I had to work across business units and understand very different perspectives, from boardroom legal to factory floors overseas.
The job wasnt just having the idea.
It was getting people aligned enough to make it happen.
Thats something I still carry into my work through TSOM.
Because taking a concept from vision to reality means working across an entire ecosystem:
Founders
Design
Development
3D
Pattern Cutting
Factories
Marketing
The clearer the intent, the less room there is for interpretation.
And the less the idea gets lost on its way to production.
Thats where Aesthetic Certainty comes in.
Everyone understands what were trying to make.
Not just what it looks like, but how it works, how its constructed, and how it needs to exist in the real world.
You dont create accountability by pushing harder.
You create it by building enough trust, clarity, and ownership that people want to carry the work with you.
For me, thats a big part of how innovation gets made.